Each night, Tsomo Dasel, the owner of Himalayan Yak restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, lets some of her staff leave work hours before closing. The measure is protective: Most of her employees, she said, are female and are regularly accosted by men on the street seeking paid sex.
Last Saturday, a dozen volunteers from immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York gathered at Bushwick’s Maria Hernandez Park, with banners and signs reading “Vote Yes for Prop One!” and “Defend Democracy in NYC.”
The first, Proposition 1, is designed to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. The rest would make changes to New York City’s governing charter.
Sex workers and their supporters are pushing back against an industry crackdown along a stretch of Roosevelt Ave. in Queens, saying that the effort unfairly targets the communities’ most vulnerable members, including immigrants and transgender residents.
Sex workers and activists in Queens say that the city and state’s plan to send more police onto Roosevelt Avenue to quell quality of life issues is both an overblown and potentially dangerous response.
Con las frentes en alto y a viva voz, trabajadoras sexuales y vendedoras ambulantes se unieron para exigir fin de la operación denominada Restauración de la Avenida Roosevelt, que las autoridades, desde la gobernadora del estado y el alcalde Adams implementaron con decenas de policías estatales y del NYPD para eliminar los prostíbulos ilegales, trafico sexual y vendedores ambulantes sin licencias.
There's backlash a week after the New York City Police Department launched an operation to crack down on illegal brothels, sex trafficking and unlicensed vendors along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens.
Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday that the city would up its effort to cut down illegal vending, littering and sex trafficking on Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue. But critics said the mayor’s dedication to cleaning up the notorious street in Western Queens sounded eerily familiar to his past efforts to cut back on crime on Roosevelt, leading some to wonder if the new plan will actually lead to any lasting change.